The things I do for the Cincinnati Reds. Today I booked a reservation in a five star hotel in Nicosia, Cyprus so I could have a decent internet connection to watch Opening Day. I'm leaving tomorrow evening on a 20 minute flight for Larnaca, where I will spend the night before heading to Agia Napa on Saturday morning, a resort area with beautiful beaches and a few 16th century churches. The hotels for these three nights are so cheap that I decided to splurge a little to ensure a good internet connection for Our Holy Day. So Hilton it is.
I am drawn to wartorn countries, and one of the things I am most excited about seeing in Nicosia is the United Nations wall that divides Greek and Turkish Cyprus. Now, this is one country I have known very little about until recently. Basically this is what happened. The Greek and Turkish Cypriots used to live together across all parts of the island, though they hated each other since the Ottomans invaded in the 16th century. The British took over after the Russian-Ottoman War in the 1870s and there were various attempts by the Greeks to unite with Greece, which naturally pissed off the Turks, who began to advocate for partition of the island. Turkey invaded in 1974, the Greeks in the north were evicted from their homes and the Turks in the south moved to the North. The Turks declared independence but today only Turkey recognizes this so-called independence. Nicosia was divided, and it was just two years ago that part of the wall in Nicosia came down, allowing people to pass from north to south. I look forward to walking through this checkpoint.
At any rate, I look forward to finding products I can't get in Lebanon, as Cyprus is part of the EU and European goods pass freely into the country. I think I'll raid the duty free on the way back...
But back to baseball...Gonna be going back in time for the first two months of the season...back to listening to all the Reds games on the radio, but this time, it will be the day after they are played except day games. It shouldn't be too much of a problem to avoid knowing the outcome of the games before I hear them. Listened to yesterday's Spring Training game today - such joy! Baseball is here!
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2 comments:
Sox are the best, definitelly!))
I found your blog doing a search for baseball-related blogs. I'm trying to watch or listen to every Red Sox game this season and hopefully learn to love baseball in the process. I had to laugh, because your Blog title really relates to my most recent post.
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